What’s Happening

Opportunity Culture® News and Views

For Strong Educator Recruitment, Start Now: Tips from Opportunity Culture® District Leaders

For Nicole Hayes, recruiting educators to Nash County Public Schools means facing some stiff competition. Nash County abuts the much larger—and much wealthier—Wake County Public Schools in North Carolina.

And yet, “we’ve been able to retain teachers and bring some back to our district who left to go to Wake because their [pay] supplements are way higher,” she said.

Hayes, Nash’s Opportunity Culture director, and her peers in other districts of varying size have successfully improved their recruitment efforts for Opportunity Culture educator roles using some of the same strategies—garnering their districts not only more, but also stronger, applicants.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Montgomery County, & Fort Worth School Districts Receive Federal Grant for Wide Use of Opportunity Culture® Models

We’re excited about our latest news! Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Fort Worth ISD, and Montgomery County Public Schools have been awarded a $7.7 million federal TSL grant for widespread implementation of Opportunity Culture innovative staffing models, which CMS pioneered with Public Impact’s support in 2013. With the grant, CMS will expand its use of these models to all of its schools over three years, while the Fort Worth and Montgomery County districts will launch and expand the models over three years.

Succeeding—and Paying It Forward—as an International MTRT

When Raissa Renacia arrived from the Philippines in 2019 to teach math in Ector County, Texas, she had a lot of questions.

From where to find rice to how to manage an American classroom, Renacia found herself wishing she had one person to give her answers. Today, in her third year in the Master Team Reach Teacher (MTRT) role, she’s become that mentor for other international teachers.

Celebrating 10 Opportunity Culture® Years!

We are kicking off the 2023-24 school year with big celebrations–and big plans for more! At Public Impact, we’re celebrating our 10th year of helping schools implement what district leaders call “game-changing” Opportunity Culture innovative staffing models, proven to get results for student learning and educator satisfaction. 

Since the first pioneering districts began implementing Opportunity Culture models in 2013-14, the national Opportunity Culture initiative to reach more students with excellent teaching and more educators with excellent careers keeps growing! We’re excited to see all that Opportunity Culture schools have achieved so far, and ready to reach many more in the second decade.

New Publications: How Strong District Opportunity Culture® Leadership Helped Pave the Way for Low-Performing Schools to Succeed

When Dr. Tina Lupton and Dr. Timisha Barnes-Jones joined the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, Opportunity Culture implementation was happening in the midst of Covid. Lupton, the executive director of professional learning, and Barnes-Jones, the area superintendent for a network of 15 transformation schools, used their experience in other Opportunity Culture districts to help the schools make some adjustments. By the following year, three of those Opportunity Culture schools came off North Carolina’s “low-performing” list; nine of the 11 schools implementing Opportunity Culture models either met or exceeded the bar set by the state for expected student learning growth—results they attribute in part to these models.

New Opportunity Culture® Audio: Public Impact® Module Helps Schools Create a Tutoring Culture

Former Multi-Classroom Leader® Okema Owens Simpson led the development of Public Impact’s on-demand module, Building a Scalable, Sustainable Tutoring Culture for AllIn this podcast, Simpson provides an overview of the Multi-Classroom Leader® role and the power of small-group, in-school tutoring through MCL teams, as a preview for watching the module and understanding our SIMPLE framework for building a tutoring culture. Listen here.